{"id":71985,"date":"2026-11-02T16:30:49","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T14:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lhr-law.de\/?p=71985"},"modified":"2026-11-09T01:32:32","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T23:32:32","slug":"gpsr-ppwr-small-online-shops-souvenirs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lhr-law.de\/en\/magazine-en\/competition-law-antitrust-law\/gpsr-ppwr-small-online-shops-souvenirs\/","title":{"rendered":"LHR case study: GPSR and PPWR for small online shops \u2013 what souvenir shops and tourism associations need to know now"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IllustrationFridge magnet, town mug, accommodation guide in an envelope: for the small online shops of municipalities and tourism associations, the GPSR and the PPWR have suddenly become an issue, although nothing about the range has changed.<\/em><\/p>\n

One regional tourism association has therefore stopped sending brochures abroad as a precaution. Is that really necessary?<\/em><\/p>\n

The enquiry that reached us recently will sound familiar to many tourist information offices. A regional tourism association, whose members include every municipality in several districts as well as hotels and leisure facilities, wanted to know what the EU General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) and the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) mean for its members. Most of them run a small online shop selling souvenirs and send out tourist brochures on request, in modest quantities. The association had already stopped sending brochures abroad as a precaution.<\/p>\n

That caution is understandable, but in our experience it starts in the wrong place. For most small shops, the greater risk lies not in the brochure but on the souvenir shelf and in the mandatory information on the product page.<\/p>\n

GPSR and PPWR for small online shops: what actually applies?<\/h2>\n

Since 13 December 2024, the GPSR has governed what information an online offer must contain and who is responsible for the safety of a consumer product. The PPWR has applied since 12 August 2026 and determines who must register and pay for packaging, in every country to which a consignment is sent. For a small shop, three questions therefore matter: what is being sold, under whose name, and where is it being shipped?<\/p>\n

Regulation (EU) 2023\/988<\/a> covers all consumer products, including those given away free of charge (Art. 3(1) GPSR). It is, however, only a safety net: where more specific legislation exists, that legislation takes precedence (Art. 2 GPSR). The soft toy is therefore governed primarily by toy safety law, the mug by the rules on food contact materials and the cotton bag by textile labelling law. The regional herbal liqueur, incidentally, falls under food law rather than the GPSR.<\/p>\n

Putting your town logo on a mug makes you the manufacturer<\/h2>\n

Under the GPSR, a manufacturer is also anyone who has a product manufactured and markets it under its own name or trademark (Art. 3(8) GPSR). A municipality that orders a few hundred mugs bearing its town logo from a promotional goods supplier is therefore not a distributor but the manufacturer, with all the obligations under Art. 9 GPSR. In tourist shops this is the norm, and it is almost always overlooked.<\/p>\n

The supplier stays in the background; to the outside world, it is the municipality that appears. It must present itself as the manufacturer in the online offer, put its address on the product or its packaging and, if things go wrong, take responsibility for recalls and accident notifications. Anyone who presents themselves as the manufacturer by name or logo is also liable for damage under product liability law, which will not become any milder from 9 December 2026. We have explained separately what the new German Product Liability Act means for retailers and importers<\/a> (in German).<\/p>\n

The position is different for third-party branded goods resold unchanged. The shop then remains a distributor and, under Art. 12 GPSR, essentially has to check whether the manufacturer and importer details are present. Anyone who orders directly from a supplier outside the EU, on the other hand, becomes the importer (Art. 11 GPSR) and takes on its own verification and labelling obligations.<\/p>\n

What information must every online offer contain?<\/h2>\n

Art. 19 GPSR requires every single offer to contain the following information clearly and visibly:<\/p>\n